CD/DVD RW Drive is reading DVDs, but not CDs

Marshe Valias · 26 Dec 2010

I noticed this a few minutes ago, I just got finished watching a movie, and was putting music on when I was about to load World of Warcraft, I brought up winamp with the tracks from the CD that I had saved to my playlist, and it'd skip right over them to the next track I'd saved on my hard drive, I'd tried deleting the filters as I'd seen in other threads, and even shutting down, unplugging it, and re-plugging it back into my power supply, but still to no avail.

Does anyone have any tips on how to remedy my problem?

Johnathan Lyman · 26 Dec 2010

1. How old's the drive (if it came with the machine, how old is the machine)
2. Does it not play ANY CDs of ANY kind? (software but not music, etc etc)
3. Do these CDs work on other machines?
4. Can you burn CDs (if you have the ability)?

Marshe Valias · 26 Dec 2010

I don't think the drive's that old, 2 years at most, and I've tried 6 different cds, they all worked, 3 dvds all worked as well, and the cd's worked just fine on my xbox, and I haven't tried burning a cd lately, but I could before.

Johnathan Lyman · 26 Dec 2010

You said 6 CDs all worked. I guess I'm unsure of what you're asking about, then.

Marshe Valias · 26 Dec 2010

Er, I meant they didn't work, my mistake.

Johnathan Lyman · 26 Dec 2010

Do you know the manufacturer of your optical drive? Hit up their Web site for updated firmware if any. I found that to be my solution with my Sony Vaio laptop I have lying around somewhere. It wouldn't play most discs until the firmware updated. Thing is the firmware fixed something that another update to Windows broke on that particular drive. It was odd.

Samsung: ODD Support
Lite-On: Lite-On IT Corporation Global - Firmware and Others
Asus: http://support.asus.com/download/mod...Language=en-us
LG: LG Welcome to LG Customer Service & Support
Sony: Sony eSupport - Electronics - Select Your Model

Marshe Valias · 26 Dec 2010

Hmm, the properties show it's name is TSSTcorp CDW/DVD TS-H492C ATA Device.

Johnathan Lyman · 26 Dec 2010

Marshe Valias said:

Hmm, the properties show it's name is TSSTcorp CDW/DVD TS-H492C ATA Device.

TSST is Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology. Firmware can be found on the Samsung site I gave you.

SAMSUNG ODD SERVICE

Do you know what revision/version you have of the device?

Also, it could just be the drive mechanically failing. It's not highly possible but still possible. When it reads one type of disc, the laser has to tilt ever so slightly to the correct angle for the type of disc it's reading. If it can't tilt just right (it won't really know it can't) then it can't read the disc you gave it.

And it looks like it's more like 4-5 years old, given the dates of the firmware for each revision of the device.

Because of how cheap optical drives are today (pickable for $16-20) you may just want to consider getting a new one.

Marshe Valias · 26 Dec 2010

Well, I'll see what I can do, worst comes to worst, I'll have 2 cd drives, one just for dvds until it finally craps out completely.

Thanks for the help dude.

Johnathan Lyman · 26 Dec 2010

Marshe Valias said:

Well, I'll see what I can do, worst comes to worst, I'll have 2 cd drives, one just for dvds until it finally craps out completely.

Thanks for the help dude.

If you find a solution, please come back and let us know. You never know if someone else may benefit from it!

Happy New Year!